This invention relates to a process for preparing a malt-based liqueur, and employs a freeze concentration step in attaining an increased alcohol content.
Liqueurs, such as Irish-style creams and those flavored with peach, orange, cherry, coffee and the like, are made chiefly by distilling the alcohol and the flavor compounds in mixture therewith. The distillation process removes a quantity of water and thereby permits attainment of the relatively-high alcohol content commonly present in these beverages. However, because employment of a distillation process to concentrate alcohol content in a malt-based beverage adversely affects its palatable qualities, malt beverages have not been looked upon in the past as viable precursors for liqueur products.
The use of a freeze concentrator apparatus to accomplish removal of a quantity of water from a liquid is presently recognized for various applications. For example, frozen orange juice concentrate is produced by a freeze concentration operation whereby fresh orange juice has much of its water removed by cooling to a temperature where water turns to ice which is then removed from the juice product. The resultant concentrated juice is then frozen for subsequent thawing and water reconstitution. In addition to removing water, freeze concentration has been employed to also include a portion of alcohol being removed with water from a liquid as described by Vella in U.S. Pat. No. 4,468,407 to thereby produce a low-alcohol beverage in the subsequently-melted extrudate. Malick, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,323,919, describes the use of freeze concentration to remove water from reduced-hops beer and produce a unique, directly-consumable, high-alcohol beverage. Thus, freeze concentration has been employed to alter water or water-and-alcohol content in a beverage. Khudenko et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,102, describes a method and apparatus for freeze concentrating a liquid containing volatile and non-volatile components by mixing a liquid refrigerant gas with the liquid in a manner to retain volatile components in the concentrated end product.
It has now been found that freeze concentration can be employed in the preparation of a flavored liqueur product having a malt-based precursor or wort, thereby allowing production of a liqueur from a malted barley without the toward effects of distillation normally required in traditional liqueur production. Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to prepare a flavored liqueur from a malt-based precursor. A further object of the present invention is to employ freeze concentration in achieving a desired alcohol content in the liqueur. Another object of the present invention is to provide a broad scope of flavored liqueurs produced from a single malt-based precursor. These and other objects of the invention will become apparent throughout the description which follows.